INTRODUCTION:This study investigated the acceptability and feasibility of digital phenotyping in a military sample with a history of traumatic brain injury and co-occurring psychological and cognitive symptoms. The first aim was to evaluate the acceptability of digital phenotyping by (1a) quantifying the proportion of participants willing to download the app and rates of dropout and app discontinuation and (1b) reviewing the stated reasons for both refusing and discontinuing use of the app. The second aim was to investigate technical feasibility by (2a) characterizing the amount and frequency of transferred data and (2b) documenting technical challenges. Exploratory aim 3 sought to leverage data on phone and keyboard interactions to predict if a participant (a) is depressed and (b) has depression that improves over the course of the study. MATERIALS AND METHODS:A passive digital phenotyping app (Mindstrong Discovery) functioned in the background of the participants' smartphones and passively collected phone usage and typing kinematics data. RESULTS:Fifteen out of 16 participants (93.8%) consented to install the app on their personal smartphone devices. Four participants (26.7%) discontinued the use of the app partway through the study, primarily because of keyboard usability and technical issues. Fourteen out of 15 participants (93.3%) had at least one data transfer, and the median number of days with data was 40 out of a possible 57 days. The exploratory machine learning models predicting depression status and improvement in depression performed better than chance. CONCLUSIONS:The findings of this pilot study suggest that digital phenotyping is acceptable and feasible in a military sample and provides support for future larger investigations of this technology.
INTRODUCTION Developing the clinical reasoning skills necessary to becoming an astute diagnostician is essential for medical students. While some medical schools offer longitudinal opportunities for students to practice clinical reasoning during the preclinical curriculum, there remains a paucity of literature fully describing what that curriculum looks like. As a result, medical educators struggle to know what an effective clinical reasoning curriculum should look like, how it should be delivered, how it should be assessed, or what faculty development is necessary to be successful. We present our Introduction to Clinical Reasoning course that is offered throughout the preclinical curriculum of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. The course introduces clinical reasoning through interactive lectures and 28 case-based small group activities over 15 months.The curriculum is grounded in script theory with a focus on diagnostic reasoning. Specific emphasis is placed on building the student's semantic competence, constructing problem lists, comparing and contrasting similar diagnoses, constructing a summary statement, and formulating a prioritized differential diagnosis the student can defend. Several complementary methods of assessment are utilized across the curriculum. These include assessments of participation, knowledge, and application. The course leverages clinical faculty, graduate medical education trainees, and senior medical students as small group facilitators. Feedback from students and faculty consistently identifies the course as a highly effective and engaging way to teach clinical reasoning. CONCLUSION Our Introduction to Clinical Reasoning course offers students repeated exposure to well-selected cases to promote their development of clinical reasoning. The course is an example of how clinical reasoning can be taught across the preclinical curriculum without extensive faculty training in medical education or clinical reasoning theory. The course can be adapted into different instructional formats to cover a variety of topics to provide the early learner with sequential exposure and practice in diagnostic reasoning.
PTSD is a significant public health issue. We tested the efficacy of virtual reality exposure (VRE) or prolonged imaginal exposure (PE), augmented with D-cycloserine (DCS) for combat-related PTSD. As an exploratory aim, we examined whether brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) moderated treatment response.
We examined the naturalness bias - the tendency to prefer people who seem to come by their talent naturally and not through work or effort - on ratings of athletic ability. Football (soccer) coaches, athletes, fans, and non-fans (n = 430) read about an athlete described as either being a natural or a striver. After watching a video of the athlete going through drills, participants rated the athlete on likelihood of success, athletic skill, mental strength, and physiological ability. Participants of all expertise levels tended to rate the athlete described as a natural as being higher in mental toughness than did the participants rating the athlete described as being a striver. There were no significant differences in ratings for the natural and the striver for measures of skill and explosiveness. It appears that the naturalness bias was most likely to influence ratings not easily judged by viewing a single performance.
We argue that intuition is a multifaceted construct, a single label applied to three distinct types of intuition: Holistic, Inferential, and Affective. The goals of this study were to (1) evaluate the independence of these types of intuition and (2) examine the relationships between each type and various thinking styles, beliefs, and cognitions. Results confirmed the distinction among of the types of intuition and established their differential relationships to other relevant constructs including need for cognition, rumination, religiosity, spirituality, conservatism, cognitive reflection, scientific reasoning, and bullshit receptivity. Affective intuition was associated with participants' religious and political beliefs and with lower levels of cognitive reflection and scientific reasoning. Holistic intuition was positively associated with thinking styles such as need for cognition and the propensity to ruminate. Inferential intuition was not strongly related to any of the measures used in this study, perhaps because our tasks did not rely on domain expertise. The results of this study have implications for theory about intuition and on the applications of intuition in areas such as in judgment and decision-making.
Repetitive traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) among military personnel have been linked to chronic behavioral and neurological symptoms, and poor health outcomes. Repetitive TBIs may impact inflammation, which may offer some explanation of the biological basis of these long-term risks, and may improve the care that is provided to these individuals. This study examines the concentrations of TNFα, IL-6 and IL-10 and associations with behavioral symptoms, including post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and depression in a cohort of 106 military personnel and Veterans with a history of TBI. Group comparisons conducted for those with repetitive TBIs (> 3; n = 44), to participants with less than three TBIs (n = 29), and controls with no TBIs (n = 33). The primary outcomes were serum levels of inflammatory related proteins TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-10, TBI history, and PTSD symptoms. IL-6 mean concentration was significantly higher in the repetitive TBI group compared to those with 1-2 TBI or no TBI history (p = 0.050). Additionally, for participants with a history of TBI, PTSD symptom severity, specifically, intrusion (p = .006 and p = .007) and avoidance (p = .034 and .009), were significant predictors of higher IL-6 and IL-10 concentrations respectively. These findings suggest that repetitive TBIs concurrent with high PTSD symptoms in military personnel and Veterans are associated with chronic inflammation, and specifically elevated concentrations of IL-6. Examining the changes in inflammatory processes may identify potential therapeutic targets for early intervention after TBI in order to prevent the development of neurological deficits and disorders.
This article reports on a study that examined the effects of African drumming on the mood and demeanour of older individuals, both those with and those without dementia, in Hong Kong. Previous research indicated that music-making has a positive effect on older adults' overall health and well-being. The study participants' mood and demeanour were measured through observer and self-rating before and after taking part in one of three African drumming sessions. There was a significant improvement in all aspects of all the participants' mood and demeanour after participating in the drumming sessions. A positive impact of the drumming session was also found on the caregivers. The drumming sessions involved physical activity, skill acquisition, reminiscence, joint music making and social interaction that all could have led to the large positive changes in mood and demeanour found in the study participants.
The present study sought to determine whether witness memory for duration could be improved. In three studies, we examined the effects of unpacking (breaking an event into its component parts), anchoring (supplying participants with a reference duration), and summation (summing component estimates). Participants watched a video-recorded mock crime and provided duration estimates for components of the crime (e.g., casing the car, unlocking the door, etc.) and for the total crime. Results indicate that bias in estimated duration was less for the sum of the parts than it was for the overall duration estimate. Further, the sum of the individual parts did not equal the total estimate, even though all estimates were given in sequence. Summing the component parts could be a more successful intervention than anchoring or unpacking and is easy to employ with witnesses.
We examined whether or not interventions that have been used to try to influence predictions of future task duration unpacking, summing and anchoring - had a similar effect on retrospective estimations of duration. In three studies, participants experienced a number of short stimuli, such as watching videos, before estimating the duration for each of the stimuli and the overall duration. The first estimation given served as an anchor for all following estimates. If the first estimation was highly biased in one direction, then subsequent estimates were more likely to also be biased in the same direction. Additionally, separate estimates for a number of individual tasks differed from the estimates for all of the tasks combined. This incongruity happened even though all estimates were given in sequence. Overall, results indicated that memories of past task duration could be influenced by the manner in which they were elicited.
Here we offer a brief review of research on individual differences that are common to musicians, focusing on our own work on rumination and stress. Rumination and stress have been linked with depression and negative health outcomes. We discuss two of our published studies and two new, unpublished replications that find elevated levels of rumination and stress in musicians. Further, we review literature that finds this combination of rumination and stress might be especially toxic. Even though people frequently use music to help combat stress, musicians may not be taking advantage of their frequent exposure to music, further exacerbating the problem. Interventions aimed at alleviating stress and rumination might prove helpful to musicians.
People high in rumination are good at tasks that require persistence whereas people low in rumination is good at tasks that require flexibility. Here we examine real world implications of these differences in dynamic, team sport. In two studies, we found that professional male football (soccer) players from Germany and female field hockey players on the US national team were lower in rumination than were non-athletes. Further, low levels of rumination were associated with a longer career at a higher level in football players. Results indicate that athletes in dynamic, team sport might benefit from the flexibility associated with being low in rumination.
Rumination has primarily been described as maladaptive due to its relation with depression. However, rumination has also been associated with artistic creativity. Higher levels of rumination in musicians may be associated with ability because the repetitive thought style in rumination may mirror the repetitive practice required to succeed as a musician. The current study examined reflective and brooding rumination in relation to depression in musicians and nonmusicians. Results indicated that musicians exhibited higher levels of reflective rumination than nonmusicians and that, within musicians, reflective rumination was related to certain aspects of musical performance. The current findings indicate that having a reflective ruminative thought style is predictive of musical performance.
In the spring of 2009, we started a concert band programme at a high school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In the fall of 2011, we returned to the school to measure the impact of participating in a concert band on the students' attitude and outlook. During our initial and return visits, we measured feelings of self-esteem, optimism, positive affect, negative affect, motivation to avoid losses and motivation to seek gains. We compared participants in our music group to a group of same-age students at the same school who were not part of the music programme. At the second testing, the band members, and not members of the control group, showed increased levels of optimism and motivation to seek gains. The music programme appears to have certain psychosocial benefits, improving aspects of attitude and outlook for participants in the band.
ABSTRACT The Types of Intuition Scale (TIntS) measures three types of intuition identified in a literature review by Pretz and Totz (2007): holistic, inferential, and affective. Holistic intuitions integrate diverse sources of information in a Gestalt‐like, non‐analytical manner; inferential intuitions are based on previously analytical processes that have become automatic; and affective intuitions are based on feelings. Current intuition measures inadequately assess these distinct types. We report four validity studies: Study 1 reports the reliability and factor structure of the TIntS and correlations with extant intuition and personality measures. Study 2 presents a confirmatory factor analysis. Studies 3 and 4 examine the predictive validity of the TIntS with respect to clinical decision making in occupational therapy and musical performance. Scales were internally consistent and stable over time, and factor analyses supported the predicted distinctions among them. Correlations with existing measures of intuition, personality, and behavior showed that the TIntS is unique in its assessment of all three types of intuition in one measure. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We examined whether people recognized that others might disagree with their high self-assessments of driving ability, and, if so, why. Participants in four experiments expressed a belief that others would assess them as worse drivers than they assessed themselves. This difference appears to be caused by participants' use of their own, idiosyncratic definition of driving ability. In Experiments 2 and 3 participants reported that others would supply similar assessments of their ability when the skill was less ambiguous. Results of Experiment 4 indicate that participants recognize that there may be more than one way to view driving performance. Participants appear aware that others likely disagree with their self-assessment of driving ability due to differences in how others define driving ability.